Our correspondent went on an expedition to see monuments about which more myths and legends are known than scientific facts - stone crosses. On the territory of many regions of the North-West, you can see these amazing witnesses of the past centuries. Some of them have become real local shrines, while others are simply abandoned and doomed to complete oblivion. And it is difficult to say what is better for them: to get into a museum and break away from their native land, or to gradually leave for this land.
For memory and at the cemetery
The custom of installing stone crosses came to us along with the development of Christianity from Byzantium. Artifacts that can be accurately dated are known only from the 12th century. These first samples were commemorative (set in honor of some event) and grave crosses.
A classic example of a commemorative cross is the Sterzhensky cross. It is hewn from a block of red sandstone, its thickness is 32 centimeters and a height of about 167 centimeters. On it there is an inscription: "In the summer of 6641 July, 14th day of digging the river Syuz Ivanko Pavlovits and krst si postakh" (6641 - 1133 by modern chronology). This cross was erected along the Novgorod-Volga waterway when the Novgorodians tried to dig a “river” to connect different water basins. Today the monument is kept in the Tver State Museum of Local Lore.
An example of an ancient grave cross of the 12th century is the cross from the burial ground near the village of Ivorovo, Staritskiy district, Tver region. Its shape is somewhat similar to pagan idols, and in the burial ground itself, archaeologists found a sarcophagus carved from a whole slab of limestone with the remains of a man, apparently a Slav. In the future, stone crosses were mainly grave, because, according to the Holy Scriptures, it was the stone that covered the cave where Christ was buried. And worship crosses, which were installed at crossroads and near villages, were made mainly of wood - as a symbol of the cross on which Jesus was crucified.
The most famous stone cross of the Russian North-West is the Truvor cross in Izborsk. The legend that tied the two-meter cross to the chronicle Truvor originated in the period of Catherine II. The Empress even ordered the issuance of a special medal depicting the Truvor mound, although such a mound did not exist in Izborsk. It has now been established that the Truvorov cross was made from local limestone in the 15th century.
Swedish crosses over Novgorod graves
Local residents can tell many legends about the stone guardians of eternity. Moreover, even in neighboring villages, there are completely different versions, since there is practically no indigenous population left in these places. The distorted memory of the "local", but in fact, the newcomer population is very typical, for example, for the Kingisepp and Volosovsky districts of the Leningrad region. Stone crosses of the XIV-XVI centuries have been preserved here, but the village people consider them "Swedish". Even guidebooks write, for example, that a group of stone crosses in the village of Beseda are crosses from the graves of mid-rank Swedish military leaders. In fact, these crosses were brought from the nearest burial places of Russian people. After all, until the 17th century on our lands there was a tradition of burial in zhalniki (ancient pagan burial mounds), and not in cemeteries at churches. These zhalniks were located near the villages and were often ordinary family burials, on which stone crosses were placed, which have survived to our time.
Ignorance of their own history and the absence of popular science publications lead to the appearance of legends about stone crosses “alien” for the local population. In Gdov, we were told that the crosses that stood on the river Gdovka, and now transferred to the fortress to the cathedral and to the museum, are the navigational symbols of the Vikings, made in the form of a sword handle. No one could explain how a stone cross one meter high with inscriptions in the Church Slavonic language could have been a Varangian navigational mark on a small river.
Another persistent myth that some local historians are diligently developing is the "idol" one - allegedly stone crosses were remade from pagan idols. Only two such cases are reliably known (for one and a half thousand stone crosses of the North-West studied by us). One cross, converted from an idol, is kept in the Sebezh Museum, the other is in the Pushkinskie Gory. Most of the Pseudo-Idolic crosses are made from local boulders by locals with no experience in stone processing. Therefore, the shape of such artifacts was determined by the size of the boulder and the skill of the craftsman. When making handicraft, they spent a minimum of effort to achieve the main thing - the recognition of the shape of the cross. This approach persisted in some areas until the late 19th - early 20th centuries, and local residents mentioned the tradition of their grandfathers:"Every good man had to make a stone cross for his own grave."
Punishment for theft
In the 19th century, there were also industrial centers for the production of crosses. Starting from the 1840s, such workshops worked in Porkhovsky district, where, up to the 1920s, four types of crosses of different sizes were produced. But in those areas where the tradition of making stone crosses was lost long ago, cults of worshiping stone crosses as sacred symbols arose. Many of them are located in small chapels and sometimes serve as the only objects of worship (no icons!). They can be huge - over 2.3 meters high and up to 1.6 meters wide!
In the Pskov region, we also met a funny situation when the local object of worship is a stone woman, i.e. idol - really replaced by local priests. Now the cult object is an ordinary stone cross, dressed in a scarf. And the real idol was thrown into the old cemetery, where we found it next to another stone cross dug upside down. But, despite our skepticism towards many legends and myths, we have noticed paranormal events associated with some crosses. And we know examples confirming the belief that it is impossible to take some important attributes from a place associated with a funeral rite without leaving an equilibrium replacement. Often, the one who took the sacred thing without such an exchange paid dearly for it.
In one village in the Pskov region, we were told the following story. Several years ago, a local tractor driver brought a stone cross from a stinger to the field and placed it on the village square. And from that day, discord began in the hitherto friendly settlement: quarrels, swearing, envy. Last year, a man came to the village, introduced himself as a museum employee and took the artifact away. After that, the rift in the settlement ended. Apparently, the misfortune went to the new owner of the cross, since he hastened to get rid of the dangerous artifact (and another four dozen also stolen crosses), forcibly slipping a “gift” into the Svyatogorsk Holy Dormition Monastery in Pushkin Hills. Now the crosses stand in a heap near the monastery.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №27, Tatiana Khmelnik